Explore or exploit?

inoperable

I
Dear ED Team,

I took on in exploration - and I must admit, its fun, somehow looking for a F / G star system and
hoping for a earth like planet keeps you going... but, some thoughts about the game mechanics (correct me if i'm wrong)

1) Is there a special bonus for scanning all astral bodies in a system?
2) Why is scanning the Gas Giants moons so under-rewarded (and actually simply unnecessary, just scan the big daddy and fly away)?
3) Is there a special bonus for scanning all moons of a Gas Giant?
4) Where are Carbon stars?
5) Where are Wolf-Rayet stars?
6) Selecting target planets FROM THE SYSTEM VIEW (PLEASE!)
7) Waypoints in system for a planet-to-planet route? Since now scanning is simply go to the closes planet, scan, next, obviously that's not really efficient since criss crossing
the entire system to scan things aint that motivating...

After a day running exploration (and not reading anything about it) I learned that systems with F/G class main star
are profitable: blip the system after a jump with the advanced discovery scanner and then cherry pick planets from the system view, jump to the next...
Somehow the exploration spirit is lost on it.

I feel bad about that - but scanning all kind of crap gives me no monnies like F/G earth-like planets do.
Could you somehow reward explorers who don't cherry pick systems but scan thoroughly all astral bodies in them?
That would somehow reward those (me included) flying 200.000LS+ to scan that red dwarf on the other end of the star system ;)
Also, maybe some random findings - like unique/special planets? Dunno... Alien ruins? Voyager probe? (guess it would be away from SOL in 3300 :p) Lost exploration vessels?
 
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Brakespear

Brakespear
You can't reward players for scanning everything, because by definition you're then punishing players who don't.

That being said, it would be nice if there were things you could only discover if you were at least thorough.

As you say, alien stuff would be cool. Mysterious, never-explained shipwrecks and weird physics-defying anomalies and stuff... that could only be found via certain actions or at certain distances (stuff in low orbit, for example, that wouldn't show up with a simple d-scanner ping).
 

inoperable

I
Well that's cool but how about being first AND complete?

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Brakespear said:
You can't reward players for scanning everything, because by definition you're then punishing players who don't.
Click to expand...

If you apply bonus level mechanics to this - nobody is punishing anybody - more effort = more gain, for example:
If you scan only the Gas giant and not it's moons, you would get less if another player scans the Gas Giant and all the moons.
So where is the punishment here? It's your choice - either you scan all of them, you cherry pick. Currently I cherry pick, cause
scanning everything is just a waste of time. That's (in my humble opinion) biased reward mechanics
 

BrewerGeorge

BrewerGeorge
Brakespear said:
You can't reward players for scanning everything, because by definition you're then punishing players who don't.

That being said, it would be nice if there were things you could only discover if you were at least thorough.

As you say, alien stuff would be cool. Mysterious, never-explained shipwrecks and weird physics-defying anomalies and stuff... that could only be found via certain actions or at certain distances (stuff in low orbit, for example, that wouldn't show up with a simple d-scanner ping).
Click to expand...

Agreed. I was thinking something similar just last night. There should be rare reasons to keep people scanning the icy rocks. Ruins or strange forms of life, all the stuff you list. They don't need to be fleshed out any more than ammonia-based life is currently. Just something to give a small boost to the pocketbook and a little interest. Otherwise only the OCD types scan the rocky spheres outside the Goldilocks zone.
 

DrDeathO5

D
Brakespear said:
You can't reward players for scanning everything, because by definition you're then punishing players who don't​.

That being said, it would be nice if there were things you could only discover if you were at least thorough.

As you say, alien stuff would be cool. Mysterious, never-explained shipwrecks and weird physics-defying anomalies and stuff... that could only be found via certain actions or at certain distances (stuff in low orbit, for example, that wouldn't show up with a simple d-scanner ping).
Click to expand...

Are you serious? This argument is flawed in so many ways.
Do you actually realise what you say.

It is the same as saying:
-You can not reward players who trade in small cargo ships because you punish the players who don't trade at all.
-You can not reward players who bounty hunt a wanted Sidewinter because you punish players that go after the Anaconda's.
-You can not reward people that do something extra because you punish the ones that don't invest some extra time and effort into something.
 
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Kirkland.Langue

K
If I was going to pay someone to go search for planets, I'm most likely interested in planets that are USEFUL.
Why would I care about you finding some random rock made of worthlessness? I want you to find either a planet where people could live, with minimal terraforming effort, or a planet that is rich in some material that is valuable.

As for the idea of inserting special finds - I like the idea. Depending upon the type of special find, FD would have to come up with a reason to explain why it wasn't found in previous scans of the various planets - alien technology could be explained simply by saying that their technology led the structures to be ignored by radar until some new technology is discovered to pierce the veil. maybe ships will need to equip a special scanner that only looks for these alien ruins ... with the knowledge that aliens only lived on a very specific type of planet (specific atmosphere/temp/etc) so that explorers could narrow their search. As for wrecks, maybe that could be added when we can enter the atmospheres.
 

Daisuke-kun

Daisuke-kun
Icy planet/planet isn't worth the time. If you like to be complete in your exploration, then I am not aginst for your to do it. The reason the gas giant moon is underwhelming in regard to reward is that are usually icy moons. You get your credit worth if they are high metal moon (around 2k each) or terraformable (around 20k each), which is rare.
 
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inoperable

I
Daisuke-kun said:
Icy planet/planet isn't worth the time. If you like to be complete in your exploration, then I am not aginst for your to do it. The reason the gas giant moon is underwhelming in regard to reward is that are usually icy moons. You get your credit worth if they are high metal moon (around 3k each) or terraformable (around 20k each), which is rare.
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Yeah, and that's fine - just why not add extra rewards for complete scans of complex orbital systems?
I mean - you find that great planet and drop colonists on it, just to find out that after one orbit cycle
something baths it with radiation or impacts significantly the gravity (insert some dramatic random physics here), that wouldnt make the colonists happy ;-)

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But, what we all agree on - is some RANDOMNESS in the exploration, like finding RARE objects with RARE properties - hope ED is gonna agree with us as well ;)

And finding earth-like planets or planets for terraforming is getting more easy and easy after taking the AU distance and planet's MASS you can cherry pick quite
fast without flying to each and everyone of em..
 
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DrDeathO5

D
Kirkland.Langue said:
If I was going to pay someone to go search for planets, I'm most likely interested in planets that are USEFUL.
Why would I care about you finding some random rock made of worthlessness? I want you to find either a planet where people could live, with minimal terraforming effort, or a planet that is rich in some material that is valuable.

As for the idea of inserting special finds - I like the idea. Depending upon the type of special find, FD would have to come up with a reason to explain why it wasn't found in previous scans of the various planets - alien technology could be explained simply by saying that their technology led the structures to be ignored by radar until some new technology is discovered to pierce the veil. maybe ships will need to equip a special scanner that only looks for these alien ruins ... with the knowledge that aliens only lived on a very specific type of planet (specific atmosphere/temp/etc) so that explorers could narrow their search. As for wrecks, maybe that could be added when we can enter the atmospheres.
Click to expand...

Sure but.... but if you gain info about all places where you should stay away it would be worthfull info in itself. If i have a list of 5000 places and i can scrape 4500 places from the list this is usefull info.
Should i pay for this info. Yes but not as much as i would pay for 10 usefull places. :)
 

inoperable

I
Forgot the last thing: Any news about the LEVEL2 and LEVEL3 scans - last I checked there were not yet implemented, right? (or am i just dumb and i don't know how to do those?)
 

BrewerGeorge

BrewerGeorge
inoperable said:
...
And finding earth-like planets or planets for terraforming is getting more easy and easy after taking the AU distance and planet's MASS you can cherry pick quite
fast without flying to each and everyone of em..
Click to expand...
Are you checking the type A's for terraformers? I stumbled on that last night and they seem to be pretty common, if a bit far out.
 

PotatoOverdose

PotatoOverdose
inoperable said:
Forgot the last thing: Any news about the LEVEL2 and LEVEL3 scans - last I checked there were not yet implemented, right? (or am i just dumb and i don't know how to do those?)
Click to expand...
Level 2 and Level 3 scans will probably be atmospheric and surface scans respectively. Just speculating.
 

inoperable

I
Another idea: since space is quite unforgiving - how about catastrophic events? Super novas? Planetary collisions? Meteorite bombardments?
It would be cool to get that kind of dynamics, where first - you can witness them or be send to investigate certain sector for certain activity and report back.

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PotatoOverdose said:
Level 2 and Level 3 scans will probably be atmospheric and surface scans respectively. Just speculating.
Click to expand...

I think that would be rather geostationary close up scan's (out of the SC, close to the planet) - and this automatically gives me an idea where you could
put geostationary objects in stable orbits over the planets for exploration/military actions/blablabla. could be a cool mission to insert a geostationary spy
sat over some planet ;)
 

inoperable

I
Nope, I hunt for sun like stars (F/G) and then look on the planets from the system view - its quite simple to spot a cherry
if you can read the stellar properties accordingly (props to ED for implementing this really nicely!)

So would add A class systems to the filter ;-)

Anyone found a Carbon star?
 
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Twelvefield

Twelvefield
inoperable said:
you find that great planet and drop colonists on it, just to find out that after one orbit cycle
something baths it with radiation
Click to expand...

You're talking about Berthold Rays.

Beyond that, there are some things in the game that seem intended to be their own reward, rather than an overt payout from The Man or whoever portions out galactic credits. I don't have faith in the galactic economy anyways.
 

Brakespear

Brakespear
inoperable said:
Another idea: since space is quite unforgiving - how about catastrophic events? Super novas? Planetary collisions? Meteorite bombardments?
It would be cool to get that kind of dynamics, where first - you can witness them or be send to investigate certain sector for certain activity and report back.

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I think that would be rather geostationary close up scan's (out of the SC, close to the planet) - and this automatically gives me an idea where you could
put geostationary objects in stable orbits over the planets for exploration/military actions/blablabla. could be a cool mission to insert a geostationary spy
sat over some planet ;)
Click to expand...


How about a minigame, in which you would actually start adhering to proper orbital physics, and had to find low-orbit targets by actually intercepting them (like in Kerbal Space Program) and matching their velocities?

That's a bit of a wild one, but certainly we've all been talking about anomalous celestial events, like radiation that cripples your shields, or dying systems, or forgotten mine fields and massive ship graveyards.

It would certainly be nice if "exploration" also included the potential for salvage operations, and maybe some crossover gameplay with mining (the ability to scan and flag resources for sale or later use would be nice).
 
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